The Cabin Road. Part 1.

There are a handful of blogs I read regularly, one of which, Assortment makes me think of the cabin. The writer and her family lives in a remote part of Wyoming and on her blog she recounts their adventures and their experience of living sparingly.

This post on Assortment a few weeks ago, brought up vivid memories of being 14 or 15 and driving my dad’s baby blue Volkswagen Squareback Station Wagon up and down the cabin road. 

I started “driving” on the cabin road years before. Like all the kids in our family I took turns sitting on my grandfather’s lap and holding onto the wheel. It's a tradition that has been carried on through each generation and most recently with Josh as a little guy sitting on Jack’s lap to "drive." 

But later when I was really and truly driving it was thrilling. At first my dad was in the car with me, but after I got the hang of it he’d let me drive alone. I’d drive from the big cabin to our gate and then back. On the return trip I’d stop at the stop sign as though it were real, then put the car into gear, drive down past the little garage, then turn left onto the road above the big cabin and go again. 

Both the road and the manual transmission provided training that couldn’t be replicated elsewhere. When I think of it, I can hear that distinctive sound of a Volkswagen engine and see the sunlit sticker bushes as I passed by them again and again. I loved being behind that wheel. I still do, especially on the cabin road.